New box needed...cash to BURN!

[PhishPhreak]

It's been quite a while since I gave my PC some attention...and it looks like the old girl needs to be put out to pasture. She's a P-III 500, 384 MB RAM, with a 16MB ATI video card...and strangely...I cannot run Doom III...go figure! 😉

It has been too long since I have delved into building a machine...and of course EVERYTHING has changed! Not to mention a plethora of choices now.

Main goal here is to end up with a machine that will last awhile with the new hardware advances coming out. Uses will be Video Editing and DVD burning (already have the burner), AutoCAD, Oracle, and some gaming (when the wife is out shopping or something).

After doing some researching, I was thinking of getting an ASUS p5ad2 (deluxe or premium) with a P4 550 775 with DDR2 RAM. The biggest snag was the PCIE video card...which no one seems to have any stock of.

Now, this of course may be way overkill for my needs, but if the industry is going to a new type of RAM and video slot, it seemed logical to upgrade to that.

BUT...after reading a bunch of posts from here...I thought it best to get more opinions. Most seem to recommend the AMD processors, but I don't know enough about them to be able to compare them to their Intel counterparts. AMD was a joke back when I was last building computers. One of the main hypes on the Intel chips was the Hyper-Threading...and I haven't been able to see what AMD has come out with to compete with that. But, I got the impression that the newer AMD chips where 64 bit...and I don't think that Intel has released 64 bit yet...

Man...this is too long! Bottom line, I want to build a sweet machine...my budget is $800-$1500...it needs to last...and I want my buddies with their crappy COMPUSA boxes to drool! 😉

 

[xeenrecoil]

heya phish;

With $1,500 you can build a pretty nice machine, if you want one that will be viable for a long time you may consider building a dual Xeon with the new i7000 series chipset from intel, it will support dual PCIe, and dual channel DDR400 for a ton of memory bandwidth for dual processor goodness 😉 it looks like a real winner to me if you buy a 3Ghz Xeon w/800 FSB w/1mb cache version you can buy just one for now and add the other one in later when the price drops down, you can also add a second SLI-PCIe graphics card for Dual graphics cards. it gives you lots of headroom to power up later. you wil be fast now and omg fast later when you wanna add a second CPU or GPU. the future seems bright for the workstation.

It would start out looking like the following.

Workstation/entry level server motherboard (dual CPU socket)
1x Xeon 3Ghz w/800FSB and 1mb Cache.
1x Nvidia PCIe 6800GT-SLI
1x1GB Crucial PC3200 ECC

It would end up looking like this...
2x Xeon 3Ghz w/800FSB and 1mb Cache
2x Nvidia PCIe 6800GT-SLI
2x 1GB Crucial PC3200 ECC

As you can see it scales up nicely in power, you could upgrade your computer and stay caught up for a relatively small amount of money because the prices on the hardware would go down, and at the same time you would gain a ton of power on the inexpensive upgrade.

It is one option, give it some thought there are certainly cheaper solutions but none that can match the longevity of this one.

On a personal note this is the exact machine i will be building in 2005 😉

 

[El_Jefe_77]

eh well, if he wants to go fast for that without buying fancy supped versions of old intel technology, he could go AMD FX-53 on a 939 mobo.

Currently, this blows the doors WAY off any system out there, and, doesnt run that hot. Get a 6800GT vid card, non pci-express, by nVidia. Get 1 gig of pc4000 ram from Corsair, get a new MSI board that runs 1000 FSB. A very simple solution, the only thing is the processor is very expensive, but very much worth it. The board is like 140 bux, vid card is a lil pricey too, but well worth it in your price amount.

For a hardrive, eh, people are buying Raptors, but really, the hd doesnt do a heck of a lot when you are playing a game or using a spreadsheet or surfing the web, or well, just about anything actually. so you can save here and just go something SATA or even 133 non-sata, they really arent any faster yet, the sata's i mean.

 

[xeenrecoil]

eljefe;

the only problem with the FX-53 is it costs $830 for retail box and a xeon with the same emount of cache 1mb is only $359, so you could buy two of them and still pay less money by $110, which you could take and spend on something else, and have tons more processing power. The FX-53 is an enthusiasts bragging rights part, and isnt even in the same class as Dual Xeons, especially now that they have 800FSB, and chipsets that are dual channel memory enabled.

 

[El_Jefe_77]

for game playing, and XP in general, doesnt do great things with a dual processing system. maybe they will get it right in like 2304, but not yet.

Heck, even Hyperthreading doesnt work right or works slower in many instances, and thats a tiny attempt at dual processing. When it comes to game play and design, a single processor is king, and the fx-53 on a 939 board is that king. he has enough cash for it and a 6800 vid card and some ram.
SLI has no purpose yet, if he really wants that, he can get it on a new board and just transfer all of his stuff there, and as far as dual proc, eh, he doesnt sound like he is running a 200 person server....

 

[PhishPhreak]

XeenRecoil: I too was wondering about the effectiveness of the OS and apps using the multi-processors. I don't know too much about setting up a multi-processor system, but will having dual processors give that much of a boost to a single user environment? Which mobo are you looking at?

el_jefe_77: Not being very knowledgeable with AMD, how does their newest chip compare to Intel's newest? I am more familiar with a single processor system, but I am a little apprehensive of getting the newest (and priciest) chip. At +$800 that really zaps the budget for everything else..mobo, video, HDs, RAM, and drives.


Thanks for all the advice!

 

[Spitfire_x86]

I recommend following items:

CPU: Athlon64 3200+ (2.2 GHz, 512k L2 cache)
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Graphics Card: GeForce 6800GT/GeForce 6800/Radeon 9800 Pro (depending on budget)


------------
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[xeenrecoil]

heya Phish;

More and more games are being multithread coded, this means that using more then one CPU, or HT, or a dual core CPU, will yield performance gains over traditional single CPU solutions.
Doom3 for example is capable of using multiple CPU's. What this boils down to is you wont be CPU limited you will only be GPU limited.
Not just games are taking advantage of Multiple CPU's but many regular applications are as well, as companies are starting to realize the need for more processing power.
This is not the economical approach by any means, but the completed system costs about the same and is more powerful then the AMD FX-53 solution thats for sure.
You cant even compare their capabilties a Dual Xeon would run circles around an FX-53 in any program coded for multithreading.
Plus were talking about scalability here, the freedom to upgrade at will, and not have to change motherboards, or processors or graphics cards.
This is your one stop solution, it will be able to hold out for quite awhile against the tide of change, and do its job living up to your expectations.
Win XP Sp2 added some support and improvements for multithreading processors and applications, i dont think it will be a big issue.

What more is there to say about it, this is just a killer machine.

 

[El_Jefe_77]

The frame rates of the fx-53 blow the f'in doors off of anything out there.

plus. its a 64 bit system. thats truly upgradble.

The Next best thing would be much cheaper, but the premier, realistic system:

AMD64 3500+ processor, the 939 socket =- 374 dollars
An MSI board with 1000 FSB, nvidia3 250 or any VIA chipset - 150 dollars
2 x 512 Crucial ballistix pc4000 ram, check Crucial's website, always a good price, and, its the fastest ddr500 ram out by far. You want to use the dual channel feature, always. Currently when checked = 288 dollars, free shipping for both total.

3500+ amd chip is the beginning of the 939 line, so you cant go below that, and it must be a 939 or else you will be left in the dust come this winter.

Video card: well, on THG, everyone raves about the 6800 nvidia. Eh. its nice. but only for gaming, and particularly , doom3. However, a cheaper option is to go ATI 9800 pro. And, this thing is really really fast. Excellent for business and 2d as well, a more rounded, mature card for the money.

However, you might just want to drive a pimp machine:
Nvidia 6800 Ultra 256 meg = 400 dollars (worth it, yes, but this will put you over budget and is unnecessary for this year)
ATI 9800 pro 256 megs - cheaper, the 2nd choice (my first though, i dont like nvidia's text and 2d display as much) = 245 dollars

Case: Eh, simple, very quiet, decently cool Antec Sonata suits just about everyone fine it seems, 105 dollars, really, any case is from 110-150 dollars with psu included. Otherwise, my favorite is the Lian-li 6070. beautiful case, and is also quiet, it just will cost you 200 dollars to get it with a PSU.

Harddrives? I go quiet and efficient, some go speed. 120-200 dollars.

total is on perfect system without nvidia is less than 1500 dollars. nice eh?

 

[xeenrecoil]

lol El

 

[El_Jefe_77]

fx-53 ownz xeen

 

[endyen]

Dual chips on a single die, is the wave of the future, but it aint here yet. If you want to go dual chip check out <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=187000#187000" target="_new">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=187000#187000</A>. The opteron is better than xeon. Msi has a nice cheap board as well.
An upper middle range system should be good for you. No need to go bleeding edge, with all the ????s.
Build a system around the Asus K8N-E Deluxe, and you will be fine for a long while.
Amd chips do gaming way better than Intel chips. For some apps the Intel chip is better.
The Amd chips have x86-64 now. Intel will have it soon.
The extra registers that will start working, when you run in long mode, will make the A64 a much better deal.

 

[endyen]

And I wish I could afford to own FX-53

 

[xeenrecoil]

To clarify what the current argument is about, I am saying that a Dual Xeon 3Ghz w/800FSB 1mb cache, with dual channel memory, can outperform an single FX-53, on any application that is multithreaded, the AMD fanboys seem to think that the FX-53 would outperform Dual Xeons, the thought that a single FX-53 could out perform a Dual Xeon rig on a multithreaded program is ludicris, its not realistic, i wish people could stop the fanboy BS and tell the truth for once, it would be a nice change. For that matter an Dual opteron would run circles around a single FX-53 as well, but no not an intel huh, intel just couldnt possibly do it...whatever

 

[El_Jefe_77]

well, opterons have a huge variability in price. I know of no one so far around here that knows what dual opteron system would be better, there are many opterons to choose from with little data about any of them.

fx-53 ownz xeen

 

[Vapor]

I second that notion...a basic A64 system with a 6800GT is DEFINITELY the way to go for a ~$1500 system.

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.

 

[PhishPhreak]

I've read about some of the new advacements coming out...PCIE and DDR2 RAM...is it worth waiting a bit until these mature a little for more options to become available?

 

[apache_lives]

By the time 64-bit is fully used your chip will be as outdated as the first 32-bit processors - the 386's and the 486's... dont stick to 64-bit just yet... if you can get a better 32-bit system get it (dual Xeon and so on) (not to totally avoid the 64-bit AMD's or anything... just dont get sidetracked by '64-bit' as if its the holy grail)...

LOL Even better - buy a P4EE... does anybody actually own one??? why bother with such a piece of crap worth so much... spose thats why people buy the FX-53's...

Prescott - i noticed no one recomends them... but why bother when an Athlon-64 kicks the crap out of it for the same price...